“Skinamarink” is a Tedious Undertaking, But It Gives Hope to Experimental Filmmaking
The online phenomen leaves much to be desired, but proves that innovative filmmaking can still find a mainstream audience
Within film circles, horror fans are increasingly dissatisfied with split-second jumpscares designed to elicit shock rather than to provoke genuine fear, which has been the general standard for contemporary American horror for the past several decades. This discontent led to a newfound mainstream interest in modern indie horror, helmed by studios like A24, Focus Features, and Monkey’s Paw, which bring original, psychological, and non-franchise works into the spotlight of the horror genre. Many of these films place emphasis on lingering fright, changes to the standard rhythm of scares, and jarring breaks in realism rather than entirely supernatural disturbances and storylines. As a fan of horror, I am content with this new wave of films that focus more on atmosphere and unsettling ambiance, resulting in films that feel legitimately frightening. A perfect horror film should make you feel frozen in your tracks in the midst of an unpredictable nightmare -- one that creates unsettling environments by utilizing familiar spaces as canvases to display surreal, disturbing, and terrifying events.
Skinamarink was the first time I saw these qualities drag a film off the deep end. Director Kyle Edward Ball’s debut leans hard into liminality and ambiguity, trying to capture a particular but universally felt moment in childhood. The film follows two children who awake in the middle of the night to find their parents missing and that all their windows and doors have vanished. Skinamarink evokes the nausea of awakening from a nightmare in a sweat and trying to lull yourself back to sleep but jolting back awake at every slight creak or distant noise, praying for it to be morning again soon.
Employing an excessive amount of digital grain, Skinamarink’s visual ambiguity is well-suited for its ambiance. Long shots hold on swirling patterns of grainy images, creating the illusion of hidden figures and bodies lurking in the darkness until a light suddenly clicks on, and we are locked into a still, empty place without any signs of movement. The camera seldom holds on an entire room — instead, it focuses in on corners of walls and ceilings, patches of rugs, and wide shots obscured mainly by furniture. This visual tactic creates some strikingly haunting images — small fractions of scenes — drawing us into the terror but never breaking the tension by revealing the conflict. It seems like a recipe for a truly terrifying experience and a non-stop slow burn that constantly builds tension. But before long, Skinamarink peters out and becomes a tedious and laborious undertaking that is occasionally startling but largely unmemorable.
Skinamarink’s sole reliance on the aforementioned visual shtick does not warrant a 100-minute runtime. Genuine terror seeps through the cracks every once in a while, but the film is generally too vague to conjure up much value. It seemed like Skinamarink should have relied on more than one trick — 1990s analog hisses and ambiguous visuals build an intense atmosphere, but only work if viewers can submit themselves to the Rorschach-like nature of the film. Falling for Skinamarink’s horror solely relies on giving yourself up entirely to the film, and any amount of inquiry leaves you noticing large creative holes that become impossible to patch up.
Oddly enough, Skinamarink has developed an immediate cult following and leveraged notable word-of-mouth buzz that its $15,000 budget could never buy. Though I was left unmoved, the film gives me a sense of hope for the future of indie filmmaking. If anything, the movie’s unwarranted success shows that audiences will still pack into theaters with the promise of experiencing new experimental cinema, which is a hopeful sign for a continued revival of horror and film as a whole.
OVERALL SCORE: 6/10
Skinamarink was released on January 13 and is currently streaming on Shudder.